Forget about having it all, or not having it all, leaning in or leaning out  heres what you really need to know that nobody is telling you.

For years (decades, really) we have been bombarded with advice on professional advancement, breaking through that glass ceiling and achieving work-life balance. We can figure that out  we are Princeton women. If anyone can overcome professional obstacles, it will be our brilliant, resourceful, very well-educated selves.

A few weeks ago, I attended the Women and Leadership conference on campus that featured a conversation between President Shirley Tilghman and Wilson School professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, and I participated in the breakout session afterward that allowed current undergraduate women to speak informally with older and presumably wiser alumnae. I attended the event with my best friend since our freshman year in 1973. You girls glazed over at preliminary comments about our professional accomplishments and the importance of networking. Then the conversation shifted in tone and interest level when one of you asked how have Kendall and I sustained a friendship for 40 years. You asked if we were ever jealous of each other. You asked about the value of our friendship, about our husbands and children. Clearly, you dont want any more career advice. At your core, you know that there are other things that you need that nobody is addressing. A lifelong friend is one of them. Finding the right man to marry is another.

When I was an undergraduate in the mid-seventies, the 200 pioneer women in my class would talk about navigating the virile plains of Princeton as a precursor to professional success. Never being one to shy away from expressing an unpopular opinion, I said that I wanted to get married and have children. It was seen as heresy.

For most of you, the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry, and you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you.

Heres what nobody is telling you: Find a husband on campus before you graduate. Yes, I went there.

I am the mother of two sons who are both Princetonians. My older son had the good judgment and great fortune to marry a classmate of his, but he could have married anyone. My younger son is a junior and the universe of women he can marry is limitless. Men regularly marry women who are younger, less intelligent, less educated. Its amazing how forgiving men can be about a womans lack of erudition, if she is exceptionally pretty. Smart women cant (shouldnt) marry men who arent at least their intellectual equal. As Princeton women, we have almost priced ourselves out of the market. Simply put, there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than we are. And I say again  you will never again be surrounded by this concentration of men who are worthy of you.

Of course, once you graduate, you will meet men who are your intellectual equal  just not that many of them. And, you could choose to marry a man who has other things to recommend him besides a soaring intellect. But ultimately, it will frustrate you to be with a man who just isnt as smart as you.

Here is another truth that you know, but nobody is talking about. As freshman women, you have four classes of men to choose from. Every year, you lose the men in the senior class, and you become older than the class of incoming freshman men. So, by the time you are a senior, you basically have only the men in your own class to choose from, and frankly, they now have four classes of women to choose from. Maybe you should have been a little nicer to these guys when you were freshmen?

As I have told both my son and daughter, “NEVER MARRY OUTSIDE YOUR READING GROUP”. I do not have a college degree but have had the self discipline to learn any thing I find of interest and or use.
I married a woman with a doctorate in education and it always amazes her how much I know about a multitude of subjects and topics.
I do have enough college credits in the hard sciences and engineering to get a bachelors degree but for some strange reason I kept refusing to take the politically correct classes to qualify for a graduation.
Just stubborn I guess.

In the 1980’s, I was slaving away, sort of, as a bartender in a very hip, pricey Washington DC restaurant with other pretty, college-educated, young-but-aging, smarty-pants women who waited the wobbly, freesia’d, linen’d tables for tips while pursuing important artsy, intellectual interests by day. We were cool, smart, attractive and complete losers in the shark-infested, DC dating pool. Pretty faces, broken hearts, all of us. Over and over again.

One night, I noticed that the ordinary women in that hot restaurant kitchen that we all avoided, the women inventing new, seductive feasts every evening, were all happily married. Married to really nice men. Handsome, manly men. Could it be true? The way to a man’s heart...?

I started quizzing these patient women about how they dressed these delicious salads I’d been enjoying. What’s the sauce on the salmon? How did you prepare these steaks?

It’s true. Once I began cooking for the men in my life, anathema to most women of my stupid demographic, the long desired pronouncements of love and offers of marriage materialized. I enjoyed cooking and realized its primal value to myself and men. Yum!

The only exception I will take to this is the notion women must marry men who are as smart or smarter than they are. not true. If you can find a man who adores you, but who calls you on your crap, who supports you 100%, but won’t lie to you about your shortcomings is worth their weight in gold. Just choose the man who is right for YOU, not one who looks good on paper. People are always surprised when they meet my wonderful husband, who is 20 years older and retired from his career of backbreaking physical work. Everyone ends up falling in love with him. I was lucky he has put up with me all these years. I am really crazy!

11
posted on 05/04/2013 11:07:36 PM PDT
by Hildy
(Falling down is how you grow. Staying down is how you die.)

these poor leftists. the foolishness literally oozes from every line of this arrogant letter. to talk about something as sacred and serious as marriage like it’s some sort of simple game to be played. to talk about a college education in the worthless ivy league as making one smarter or better than anyone else.

as far as marriage goes, these people have zero concept of what God’s marriage really entails. sadly, even when they marry, i don’t think they are really “married.” married as in having submerged one’s individuality to become one person. maybe that’s why divorce is so easy for them.

Not sure if most Freepers realize it, but “Patton” is a Princeton legacy name. There is a “Patton Hall” at Princeton.

That the authoress’s two sons would matriculate at Princeton was probably a given.

However, in my view, she seems a bit stuck on herself, Princeton women, and Princeton men. Her sons, for instance.... were they admitted to Princeton based on their grades and other qualifications — or based on their surname?

If Princeton is so great, why does it employ — and perennially permit to pollute young minds — the following idiots? Cornel West, Paul Krugman, and Peter Singer.

A man who cooks for a woman in his own kitchen wins every time. A woman who cooks for a man can own him for life, a woman in a kitchen wins the man, the children, the grand kids, the extended family, and in the old days, the boss of her man.

It is the center.

Your word “primal” is so accurate.

27
posted on 05/05/2013 12:13:25 AM PDT
by ansel12
(Sodom and Gomorrah, flush with libertarians and liberals, short on social conservatives.)

Totally bought into the Feminism trap. Waited until early 30’s to marry and try to have children. You know how they told us we coud have kids into our 40’s? Well, some of us couldn’t. I couldn’t be happier with the one child I was allowed to have, but couldn’t have any more, which upset my ‘perfectly planned’ life. Girls, start having your children in your 20’s. Life doesn’t always work out the way you, or the Famous Feminists say it will. I am happily married with a wonderful son and daughter-in-law, but I would have cherished another child.

28
posted on 05/05/2013 12:31:45 AM PDT
by originalbuckeye
(Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy)

The woman who wrote the article above could have benefitted from your wisdom I quoted. When I read the WSJ article yesterday, it immediately brought to mind this advice to Princeton women, written by a woman exactly my age. Your wise saying should have been part of her advice as it seems corollary to her own.

I regularly remind my wife about this fact after she's had a tough day with the grandchildren.

31
posted on 05/05/2013 3:27:46 AM PDT
by T-Bird45
(It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)

My husband and I joke that if I am more than ten feet from the bedroom or kitchen, consider me a runaway. I live to wait on my husband hand and foot. And he reciprocates unconditionally.

We give one hunderd percent to each other and have the utmost respect for each other. In discussing marriage with two of my coworkers, they asked what our nicknames were for each other. I said that I call my husband ‘Sir’ and they practically spontaneously combusted. Neither one of them is married, having a succession of failed relationships where they gave and gave and ended up empty handed, older and alone. This man is the one that I want to grow old with, to take care of and spend my time making sure he has the best of everything I can give him.

these poor leftists. the foolishness literally oozes from every line of this arrogant letter. to talk about something as sacred and serious as marriage like its some sort of simple game to be played. to talk about a college education in the worthless ivy league as making one smarter or better than anyone else.

“But ultimately, it will frustrate you to be with a man who just isnt as smart as you.”

I smell pride in that statement and a rather “Princetonian” style condescension. Compatibilities in terms of talents, interests, and spiritual outlooks are what is more important. While a reasonable match in IQ’s might be useful, the best relationships happen when one person’s strengths complement another’s weaknesses and vice-versa and when there is real love that cause both to show grace in the face of each other’s weaknesses.

An intelligent woman may do well with a WISE husband who, while not being as intelligent at the wife, is nevertheless competent in his profession and self assured. Such a man may not be able to program a computer like his wife but he may find the plug not plugged in when the wife is in a tizzy as to why the monitor won’t turn on.

For me, the inflated 30000 dollars or so it will take to complete my bachelors degree(I have a 2 year RN degree and 4 years total college...it’s a long tedious story about wasted time and of once being a callow youth ) tends to stiffen my negativities regarding the completion of said degree at this time.

actually, far better advice to these young Princeton women would be.... do NOT marry a Princeton man!!

I agree with the message that “having it all” as career women has led many women to approach middle age with no children or a lot of frustration.

However, this idea that an intelligent woman (or man) should only marry someone of very equivalent “book smart” IQ is just silly, and wrong.

So many other qualities are more important than whether someone is a “Princeton man” or whatever.... pleaaaasssee.

Although I suppose it is true that if one’s values put that sort of thing first, that the more important thing in life is whether hubby or wifey is “Princeton material” then ofc it follows that one needs to marry that kind.

...Yes, I found that to be true. Took cooking classes at a high end kitchen store, always 21 women and me. Learned to master Stroganoff and always was “tackled” at the end of the evening. Sharing food or preparation made for immediate intimacy and was always completely disarming... as well as cheaper than taking them out. And they always bragged to their girlfriends about the date, so I had a referral system in place that paid dividends when the relationship didn’t go anywhere. Ahhhh the old days...

But ultimately, it will frustrate you to be with a man who just isnt as smart as you.

This may be true; but if the man is able to make killer pizza pie and a consistently delicious chocolate chip cookie, and is available to lift heavy objects and give free hair cuts, well then his intellectual shortcomings might be tolerated?

43
posted on 05/05/2013 6:19:27 AM PDT
by don-o
(He will not share His glory, and He will not be mocked! Blessed be the Name of the Lord forever!)

But this column probably did more to undercut liberalism than anything us right-wing extremists could dream of.

The whole point of higher education, and the Ivy League, in particular, is (now) to get women to HATE men. Typically they do a great job of it...hence women voting Democrat in much higher numbers, particularly if their education was successful and they never married.

But this column now forces girls just out of high school, girls that may have liked boys in high school, to question the motives of the colleges they are attending.

That’s part of the reason for the visceral reaction.

44
posted on 05/05/2013 6:26:11 AM PDT
by BobL
(Look up "CSCOPE" if you want to see something really scary)

...and if the aforementioned man has a good Bass voice that goes well with the wifely Alto, the manly art of Fixing Everything, very sound judgment about human nature, a preternatural ability to overlook his wife's faults, a ready laugh for the oldest chestnuts ---

throw in that he lets her go on thinking she's the smart one, and he's durn near irresistable!

Your: "I regularly remind my wife about this fact after she's had a tough day with the grandchildren." is a wonderful life-experience summary! That one sentence possesses far more importance than the entire article you referenced.

Reading that woman's self-congratulatory egg-freezing article was saddening in so many ways. Here's one comment which spoke volumes:

I decided to freeze on the afternoon of my 36th birthday, when I did a fresh round of baby math on the back of a business card at Starbucks.

Taking a hard look at family prospects in one's latter 30s is indicative of personal priorities. Doing so on the back of a business card at Starbucks is almost a cliché adding to this indicator. And the author's solution of freezing her eggs smacks more of convenience than prudence.

Finally, this passage completes the picture:

In the future, a woman who registers for law or medical schooland knows ahead of time that she will spend her prime baby-making years in the trencheswould ask for loans for tuition and egg freezing at the same time.

There it is. The egg-freezing author still advocates having it all; equating motherhood with baby-making, and ignoring the human experience that raising a family is best accomplished using the energy, optimism, and creativity of young adulthood. Her use of "social freezing" as an elective medical procedure akin to casual cosmetic surgery and funded by loans in furtherance of career shows she is first and foremost married to her desires.

My advice to men encountering such a freezer-mom, pay the bill and leave. Because her definition of family is based on "me", not "us". And as sure as God made little green apples, the only thing lower than family on her list of importance is husband.

49
posted on 05/05/2013 9:46:35 AM PDT
by DakotaGator
(Weep for the lost Republic! And keep your powder dry!!)

My grandmother gave me the best advice ever. She said the only way you will truly know a person is by meeting their families, and seeing how they treat each other. Of course being a traditional Catholic family meant marrying Catholic. I didn’t give my husband of 18 years, the father of my children a chance, until I met his sweet loving Catholic mother. She reminded me of my grandmother and I fell in love, and started liking my husband. Haha. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and I truly believe to this day the God planned for us to be together. Having the person that God plans for you, and the life that God plans for you, will bring true success. I would have made a lot of horrible decisions if I trusted my own judgement.

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